Once & Always
by somethingtragic
Summary: Across the vast ocean sailed Ginevra Weasley, a free spirited American beauty left suddenly orphaned and alone. She is amazed at the formal elegance of Malfoy Manor, the estate of the notorious Draco Malfoy. Sought after at plays, operas, and balls by L
1. Chapter 1

Once & Always

Jk rowlings characters, Judith mcnaught story line. I just put it together. No credit whatsoever to me.

England 1815

"Oh, there you are, Draco," the raven-haired beauty said to her husband's reflection in the mirror above her dressing table. Her gaze slid warily over his tall, rugged frame as he came toward her; then she returned her attention to the open jewel cases spread out before her. A nervous tremor shook her hand and her smile was overly bright as she removed a spectacular diamond choker from a case and held it out to him.

"Help me fasten this, will you?"

Her husband's face tightened with distaste as he looked at the necklaces of glittering rubies and magnificent emeralds already spread across her swelling breasts above the daring bodice of her gown.

"Isn't your display of flesh and jewels a little vulgar for a woman who hopes to masquerade as a grand lady?"

"What would _you_ know about vulgarity?" Pansy Malfoy retorted contemptuously. "This gown is the height of fashion." Haughtily she added, "Baron Lacroix likes it very well. He specifically asked me to wear it to the ball tonight."

"No doubt he doesn't want to be troubled with too many fasteners when he takes it off you," her husband returned sarcastically.

"Exactly. He's French - and terribly impetuous."

"Unfortunately, he's also penniless."

"He thinks I'm beautiful," Pansy taunted, her voice beginning to shake with pent-up loathing.

"He's right." Draco Malfoy's sardonic gaze swept over her lovely face with its alabaster skin, slightly tilted green eyes, and full red lips, then dropped to her voluptuous breasts trembling invitingly above the plunging neckline of her scarlet gown. "You are a beautiful, amoral, greedy…bitch."

Turning on his heel, he started from the room, then stopped. His icy voice was edged with implacable authority.

"Before you leave, go in and say good night to our son. Jamie is too little to understand what a bitch you are, and he misses you when you are gone. I'm leaving for Scotland within the hour."

"Jamie!" she hissed wrathfully. "He's all you care about!"

Without bothering to deny it, her husband walked toward the door, and Pansy's anger ignited. "When you come back from Scotland, I won't be here!" she threatened.

"Good," he said without stopping.

"You bastard!" she spat, her voice shaking with suppressed rage, "I'm going to tell the world who you really are, and then I'm going to leave you. I'll never come back. Never!"

With his hand on the door handle, Draco turned, his features a hard, contemptuous mask. "You'll come back, just as soon as you run out of money."

The door close behind him and Pansy's exquisite face filled with triumph. "I'll never come back, Draco," she said aloud to the empty room, "because I'll never run out of money. You'll send me whatever I want. . . ."

"Good evening, my lord," the house elf said in an odd, tense whisper.

"Happy Christmas, Northrup," Draco answered automatically as he stamped the snow off his boots and handed his wet cloak to the servant. That last scene with Pansy, two weeks earlier, sprang to his mind, but he pushed the memory away. "The weather cost me an extra day of travel. Has my son already gone to bed?"

The house elf froze.

"Draco. . ." A tall, man with dark, tangled hair and beard, and a tanned, weathered face of a sailor stood in the doorway of the salon off the marble entrance foyer, motioning to Draco to join him.

"What are you doing here, Hagrid?" Draco asked, watching with puzzlement as the man carefully closed the salon door.

"Draco," Rubeus Hagrid said tautly, "Pansy is gone. She and Lacroix sailed for Barbados right after you left for Scotland." He paused, waiting for some reaction, but there was none. He drew a long, ragged breath. "They took Jamie with them."

Savage fury ignited in Draco's eyes, turning them into furnaces of rage. "I'll kill her for this!" he said, already starting toward the door. "I'll find her, and I'll kill her. . ."

"It's too late for that." Hagrid's ragged voice stopped Draco in mid-stride. "Pansy is already dead. Their ship went down in a storm three days after it left England." He tore his gaze away from the awful agony already twisting Draco's features and added tonelessly, "There were no survivors."

Wordlessly, Draco strode to the side table and picked up a crystal bottle of firewhiskey. He poured some into a glass and drank it down, then refilled it, staring blindly straight ahead.

"She left you these." Rubeus Hagrid held out two letters with broken seals. When Jason made no move to take them, Hagrid explained gently, "I've already read them. One is a ransom letter, addressed to you, which Pansy left in your bedchamber. She intended to random Jamie back to you. The second letter was meant to expose you, and she gave it to a house elf with instructions to deliver it to the _Daily Prophet_ after she left. However, when Flossie Wilson discovered that Jamie was missing, she immediately questioned the servants about Pansy's actions the night before, and the house elf gave the letter to her instead of taking it to the _Daily Prophet _as he was about to do. Flossie couldn't reach you to tell you Pansy had taken Jamie, so she sent for me and gave me the letters. Draco," Hagrid said hoarsely, "I know how much you loved the boy. I'm so sorry. I'm so damned sorry. . . ."

Draco's tortured gaze slowly lifted to the gold-framed portrait hanging above the mantel. In agonized silence he stared at the painting of his son, a sturdy little boy with a cherubic smile on his face and a wooden soldier clutched lovingly in his fist.

The glass Draco was holding shattered in his clenched hand. But he did not cry. Draco Malfoy's childhood had long ago robbed him of his tears.

Portage, New York 1815

Snow crunched beneath her small, booted feet as Ginny Weasley turned off the lane and pushed open the white wooden gate that opened into the front yard of the modest little house where she had been born. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright as she stopped to glance at the starlit sky, studying it with the unspoiled delight of a fifteen-year-old at Christmas. Smiling, she hummed the last bars of one of the Christmas carols she'd been singing all evening with the rest of the carolers, then turned and went up the walk toward the darkened house.

Hoping not to awaken her parents or her brothers, she opened the front door softly and slipped inside. She took off her cloak, hanging it on a peg beside the door, then turned around and stopped in surprise. Moonlight poured through the window at the top of the stairway, illuminating her parents, who were standing just outside her mother's bedroom.

"No, Arthur!" Her mother was struggling in her father's tight embrace. "I can't! I just can't!"

"Don't deny me, Molly," Arthur Weasley said, his voice raw with pleading. "For Merlin's sake, don't. . ."

"You promised!" Molly burst out, trying frantically to pull free of his arms. He bent his head and kissed her, but she twister her face away, her words jerking out like a sob. "You promised me on the day Ginny was born that you wouldn't ask me to again. You gave me your word!

Ginny, standing in stunned, bewildered horror, dimly realized that she had never seen her parents touch one another before – not in teasing, nor in kindness – but she had no idea what it was her father was pleading with her mother not to deny him.

Arthur let go of his wife, his hands falling to his sides. "I'm sorry," he said stonily.

She fled into her room and closed the door, but instead of going into his own room, Arthur Weasley turned around and headed down the narrow stairs, passing within inches of Ginny when he reached the bottom.

Ginny flattened herself against the wall, feeling as if the security and peace of her world had been somehow threatened by what she had seen. Afraid that he would notice her if she tried to move toward the stairs, would know she had witnessed the humiliatingly intimate scene, she watched as he sat down on the sofa and stared into the dying embers of the fire. A bottle of firewhiskey that had been on the kitchen shelf for years stood now on the table in front of him, beside a half-filled glass. When he leaned forward and reached for the glass, Ginny turned and cautiously placed her foot on the first step.

"I know you're there, Ginny," he said tonelessly, without looking behind him. "There's little point in our pretending that you didn't witness what just took place between your mother and me. Why don't you come over here and sit by the fire? I'm not the brute you must think me."

Sympathy tightened Ginny's throat and she quickly went to sit beside him. "I don't think you're a brute, Papa. I could never think that."

He took a long swallow of the firewhiskey in his glass. "Don't blame your mother either," he warned, his words slightly slurred as if he had been drinking since long before she arrived.

With the liquor impairing his judgment, he glance at Ginny's stricken face and assumed she had understood more of the scene than she actually had. Putting a comforting arm around her shoulders, he tried to ease her distress, but what he told her increased it a hundredfold:

"It isn't your mother's fault and it isn't mine. She can't love me, and I can't stop loving her. It's as simple as that."

Ginny plunged abruptly from her secure haven of childhood into cold, terrifying, adult reality. Her mouth dropped open and stared at him while the world seemed to fall apart around her. She shook her head, trying to deny the horrible thing he had said. Of course her mother loved her wonderful father!

"Love can't be forced into existence," Arthur Weasley said, confirming the awful truth as he stared bitterly into his glass. "It won't come simply because you will it to happen. If it did, your mother would love me. She believed she would learn to love me when we were wed. I believed it, too. We _wanted_ to believe it. Later, I tried to convince myself that it didn't matter whether she loved me or not. I told myself that marriage could still be good without it."

The next words ripped from his chest with an anguish that seared Ginny's heart: "I was a fool! Loving someone who doesn't love you back is hell! Don't ever let any6one convince you that you can be happy with someone who doesn't love you."

"I – won't," Ginny whispered, blinking back her tears.

"And don't ever love anyone more than he loves you, Gin. Don't let yourself do it."

"I – I won't," Ginny whispered again. "I promise."

Unable to contain the pity and love exploding inside her, Ginny looked at him with tears spilling from her eyes and laid her small hand against his handsome cheek. "When I marry, Papa," she choked, "I shall choose someone _exactly_ like you."

He smiled tenderly at that, but made no reply. Instead he said, "It hasn't been bad, you know. Your mother and I have your brothers and you to love, and that is a love we share."

Dawn had barely touched the sky when Ginny slipped out of the house, having spent a sleepless night staring at the ceiling above her bed. Clad in a red cloak and a dark blue woolen riding skirt, she clutched her broomstick and swung effortlessly onto it.

A mile away, she came to the creek that ran alongside the road leading to the village, and dismounted. She walked gingerly down the slippery, snow-covered bank and sat down on a flat boulder. With her elbows propped on her knees and her chin cupped in her palms, she stared at the gray water flowing slowly between the frozen chunks of ice near the bank.

The sky turned yellow and then pink while she sat there, trying to recover the joy she always felt in this place whenever she watched the dawning of a new day.

A rabbit scurried out from the trees beside her; behind her she heard a broomstick drop to the ground and footsteps moved stealthily down the steep bank. A slight smile touched Ginny's lips a split second before a snowball whizzed past her right shoulder, and she leaned neatly to the left.

"Your aim is off, Harry," she called without turning.

A pair of shiny brown top boots appeared at her side.

"You're up early this morning," Harry said, grinning at the petite, youthful beauty seated upon the rock. Red hair shot with sparkling gold was pulled back from Ginny's forehead and secured with a tortoiseshell comb at the crown, then left to spill over her shoulders like a rippling waterfall. Her eyes were the deep, vivid blue of pansies. Heavily lashed and slightly tilted at the corners. Her nose was small and perfect, her cheeks delicately boned and blooming with health.

The promise of beauty was already molded into every line and feature of Ginny's face, but it was obvious to any onlooker that her beauty was destined to be more exotic than fragile, more vivid than pristine, just as it was obvious that there was a stubbornness in her small chin and laughter in her sparkling eyes. This morning, however, her eyes lacked their customary luster.

Ginny leaned down and scooped a small pile of snow with her mittened hands. Automatically Harry ducked, but instead of launching the snowball at him, as she would normally have done, she threw it into the creek.

"What's wrong, bright-eyes?" he teased. "Afraid you'll miss?"

"Of course not," Ginny said with a morose little sigh.

"Move over and let me sit down."

Ginny did so, and he studied her sad expression with mild concern. "What has you looking so grim?"

Ginny was truly tempted to confide in him. At eighteen, Harry was three years her senior and wise beyond his age. He was an orphan who was forced to live with the village's wealthiest resident, his widowed Aunt Petunia who was seemingly always ill, and clung to her nephew as to make him run the huge mansion and 1,000 acres of farmland surrounding it when he was not away at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Putting his gloved finger beneath her chin, Harry tipped her face up to his.

"Tell me," he said gently.

This second request was more than her heartsick emotions could withstand. Harry was her friend, and her brother Ron's best friend. In the years they had known each other, he had taught her to fly a broomstick, play wizards chess, swim, shoot a muggle weapon called a pistol, and cheat at cards – this last he claimed to be necessary so she would know if _she_ was being cheated. Ginny rewarded his efforts by learning to out swim, outshoot, out fly and out cheat him. They were friends, and she knew she could confide almost anything to him. She could not, however, bring herself to discuss her parents' marriage with him. Instead she brought up the other thing worrying her – her father's warning.

"Harry," she said hesitantly, "how can you tell if someone loves you? Truly loves you, I mean?"

"Who are you worried about loving you?"

"The man I marry."

Had she been a little older, a little more worldly, she would have been able to interpret the tenderness that flared in Harry's bright green eyes before he swiftly looked away. "You'll be loved by the man you marry," he promised. "You can take my word for it."

"But he must love me at least as much as I love him."

"He will."

"Perhaps, but how will I _know_ if he does?"

Harry cast a sharp, searching look at her exquisite features. "Has some local boy been pestering your papa for your hand?" He demanded almost angrily.

"Of course not!" she snorted. "I'm only fifteen, and Papa is very firm that I must wait until I'm eighteen, so I'll know my own mind."

He looked at her stubborn chin and chuckled. "If 'knowing your own mind' is all Healer Weasley is concerned about, he could let you wed tomorrow. You've known your own mind since you were ten years old."

"Your right," she admitted with cheerful candor. After a minute of comfortable silence, she asked idly, "Harry, do you ever wonder who you'll marry?"

"No," he said with an odd little smile as he stared out across the creek.

"Why not?"

"I already know who she is."

Startled by this amazing piece of news, Ginny snapped her head around. "You do? Truly? Tell me! Is it someone I know?"

When he remained silent, Ginny shot him a thoughtful, sideways look and began deliberately packing snow into a hard ball.

"Are you planning to try and dump that thing down my back?" he said, watching her with wary amusement.

"Certainly not," she said, her eyes twinkling. "I was thinking more in the line of a wager. If I can come closer to that rock atop the farthest boulder over there, then you must tell me who she is."

"And if I come closer than you do?" Harry challenged.

"Then you don't have to tell me," she said magnanimously.

"I made a big mistake when I taught you to gamble," he chuckled, but he was not proof against her daring smile.

Harry missed the far-off target by barely an inch. Ginny stared at it in deep concentration; then she let the snowball fly, hitting it dead-on with enough force to send the rock tumbling off the boulder along with the snowball.

"I also made a big mistake when I taught you to throw snowballs."

"I always knew how to do that," she reminded him audaciously, plunking her hands on her slim hips. "Now, who do you wish to marry?"

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Harry grinned down at her enchanting face. "Who do _you_ think I wish to marry, blue eyes?"

"I don't know," she said seriously, "but I hope she is very special, because you are."

"She's special," he assured her with gently gravity. "So special that I even though about her when I was away at school during the winters. In fact, I'm glad to be home so I can see her more often."

"She sounds quite nice," Ginny allowed primly, feeling suddenly and unaccountably angry at the unoffending female.

"I'd say she's closer to 'wonderful' than 'quite nice.' She's sweet and spirited, beautiful and unaffected, gentle and stubborn. Everyone who knows her comes to love her."

"Well then, for Merlin's sake, why don't you marry her and have done with it!" Ginny said grimly.

His lips twitched, and in a rare gesture of intimacy, Harry reached out and laid his hand against her heavy, silken hair. "Because," he whispered tenderly, "she's still too young. You see, her father wants her to wait until she's eighteen, so she'll know her own mind."

Ginny's enormous blue eyes widened as she searched his handsome face. "Do you mean me?" she whispered.

"You," he confirmed with smiling solemnity. "Only you."

Ginny's world, threatened by what she had seen and heard last night, suddenly seemed safe again, secure and warm. "Thank you, Harry," she said, suddenly shy. Then, in one of her lightening-quick transformations from girl to charming, gently bred young woman, she added softly, "How lovely it will be to marry my dearest friend."

"I shouldn't have mentioned it to you without first speaking with your father, and I can't do that for three more years."

"He likes you immensely," Ginny assured him. "He won't object in the least when the time comes. How could he, when you are both so much alike?"

Victoria mounted her broomstick a little while later feeling quite happy and cheerful, but her spirits plummeted as soon as she opened the back door of the house and stepped into the cozy room that served the dual purpose of kitchen and family gathering place.

Her mother was bending over the fireplace, busy making dinner in the cauldron, her hair pulled back in a tidy chignon, her plain dress clean and pressed, with plain robes over top. Hanging from nails beside and above the fireplace was an orderly assortment of dippers, graters, chopping knives and magical herbs. Everything was neat and clean and pleasant, just like her mother. Her father was already seated at the table, drinking a cup of coffee.

Looking at them, Ginny felt self-conscious, sick at heart, and thoroughly angry with her mother for denying her wonderful father the love he wanted and needed.

Since Ginny's sunrise outings were fairly common, neither of her parents showed any surprise at her entrance. They both looked up at her, smiled, and said good morning. Ginny returned her father's greeting and she smiled at her cousin, Hermione, who had live with them as long as Ginny could remember, but she could scarcely look at her mother. Instead, she went to the shelves and began to set the table with a full complement of flatware and dishes – a formality that her English mother firmly insister was "necessary for civilized dining."

Ginny moved back and forth between shelves and the table, feeling ill at ease and sick to her stomach, but when she took her place at the table, the hostility she felt for her mother slowly began to give way to pity. She watched as Molly Weasley tried in half a dozen ways to make amends with her husband, chatting cheerfully with him as she hovered solicitously at his elbow, filling his cup with steaming coffee, handing him the pitcher of cream, offering him more of her freshly baked rolls in between trips to the fireplace, where she was preparing his favorite breakfast of waffles.

Ginny ate her meal in bewildered, helpless silence, her thoughts twisting and turning as she sought for some way to console her father for his loveless marriage.

The solution came to her the instant he stood up and announced his intention of riding over to the Bones' farm to see how little Susan's broken arm was mending. Ginny jumped to her feet.

"I'll go with you, Papa. I've been meaning to ask you if you could teach me how to help you – in your work, I mean." Both her parents looked at her in surprise, for Ginny had never before shown the slightest interest in the healing arts. In fact, until then, she had been a pretty, carefree child whose chief interests were in gay amusements and an occasional mischievous prank. Despite their surprise, neither parent voiced an objection.

Ginny and her father had always been close. From that day forward, they became inseparable. She accompanied him nearly everywhere he went and, although he flatly refused to permit her to assist him in the treatment of his male patients, he was more than happy to have her help at any other time.

Neither of them ever mentioned the sad things they had discussed on that fateful Christmas night. Instead they filled their time together with cozy conversations and lighthearted laughter, for despite the sorrow in his heart, Arthur Weasley was a man who appreciated the value of laughter.

Ginny had already inherited her mother's startling beauty and her father's humor and courage. Now she learned compassion and idealism from him as well. As a little girl, she had easily won over the villagers with her beauty and bright, irresistible smile. They had liked her as a charming, carefree girl; they adored her as she matured into a spirited young lady who worried about their ailments and teased away their sullens.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Ginny, are you absolutely certain your mother never mentioned either the Duke of Atherton of the Duchess of Claremont to you?"

Ginny tore her thoughts from aching memories of her parents' funeral and looked at the elderly, white-haired healer seated across from her at the kitchen table. As her father's oldest friend, Healer Albus Dumbledore had taken on the responsibility of seeing the girls settled, as well as trying to take care of Healer Weasley's patients until the new healer arrived.

"All Hermione and I ever know was that Mama was estranged from her family in England. She never spoke of them. My brothers don't know much either, but you'd have a hard time finding them to ask them, they're all off and married with families."

"Is it possible your father had relatives in Ireland?"

"Papa grew up in an orphans' home there. He had no relatives." She stood up restlessly. "May I fix you some coffee, Healer Dumbledore?"

"Stop fussing over me and go sit outside in the sunshine with Hermione," Healer Dumbledore chided gently. "You're pale as a ghost."

"Is there anything you need, before I go?" Ginny persisted.

"I need to be a few years younger," he replied with a grim smile as he sharpened a quill. "I'm too old to carry the burden of your father's patients. I belong back in Philadelphia with a hot brick beneath my feet and a good book on my lap. How am I to carry on here for four more months until the new healer arrives, I can't imagine."

"I'm sorry," Ginny said sincerely, "I know it's been terrible for you."

"It's been a great deal worse for you and Hermione," the kindly old healer said. "Now run along and get some of this fine winter sunshine. It's rare to see a day this warm in January. While you sit in the sun, I'll write these letters to your relatives."

A week had passed since Healer Dumbledore had come to visit the Weasleys, only to be summoned to the scene of the accident where the carriage bearing Arthur Weasley and his wife had plunged down a riverbank, overturning. Arthur Weasley had been killed instantly. Molly had regained consciousness only long enough to try to answer Healer Dumbledore's desperate inquiry about her relatives in England. In a feeble whisper, she had said, ". . . . Grandmother . . . . Duchess of Claremont."

And then, just before she died, she had whispered another name – Charles. Frantically, Healer Dumbledore had begged her for a complete name, and Molly's dazed eyes had opened briefly. "Malfoy," she had breathed. ". . .Duke . . . of . . . Atherton."

"Is he a relative?" he demanded urgently.

After a long pause, she'd nodded feebly. "Cousin. . ."

To Healer Dumbledore now fell the difficult task of locating and contacting these heretofore unknown relatives to inquire whether either of them would be willing to offer Ginny and Hermione a home – a task that was made even more difficult because, as far as Healer Dumbledore could ascertain, neither the Duke of Atherton nor the Duchess of Claremont had any idea the girls existed.

With a determined look upon his brow, Healer Dumbledore dipped the quill in the inkwell, wrote the date at the top of the first letter, and hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought. "How does one properly address a duchess?" he asked the empty room. After considerable contemplation he arrived at a decision and began writing.

_Dear Madam Duchess,_

_It is my unpleasant task to advise you of the tragic death of your granddaughter, Molly Weasley, and to further advise you that Mrs. Weasley's daughter and niece, Ginevra and Hermione, are now in my care. However, I am an old man, and a bachelor besides. Therefore, Madam Duchess, I cannot properly continue to care for two orphaned young ladies._

_Before she died, Mrs. Weasley mentioned only two names – yours and that of Charles Malfoy. I am, therefore, writing to you and to Sir Malfoy in the hope that one or both of you will welcome Mrs. Weasley's daughter and niece into your home. I must tell you that the girls have nowhere else to go. They are sadly short of funds and in dire need of a suitable home._

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and scrutinized the letter while a frown of concern slowly formed on his forehead. If the duchess was unaware of the girls' existence, he could already foresee the old lady's possible unwillingness to house them without first knowing something about them. Trying to think how best to describe them, he turned his head and gazed out the window at the girls.

Hermione was seated upon the swing, her slim shoulders drooping with despair. Ginny was determinedly applying herself to her sketching in an effort to hold her grief at bay.

Dumbledore decided to describe Hermione first, for she was the easiest.

_Hermione is a pretty girl, with light brown hair and brown eyes. She is sweet-dispositioned, well-mannered, and charming. At seventeen, she is nearly of age to marry, but has shown no particular inclination to settle her affections on any one young gentleman in the district. _

Dumbledore paused and thoughtfully stroked his chin. In truth, many young gentlemen in the district were utterly smitten with Hermione. And who could blame them? She was pretty and studious and sweet. She was angelic, Dumbledore decided, pleased that he had hit upon exactly the right word to describe her.

But when he turned his attention to Ginny, his bushy white brows drew together in bafflement, for although Ginny was his personal favorite, she was far harder to describe. Her hair was not golden, not was it truly red; rather, it was a vivid combination of both. Hermione was a pretty thing, a charming, demure young lady who turned all the local boys' heads. She was perfect material for a wife: sweet, gentle, soft-spoken, and biddable. In short, she was the sort of female who would never contradict or disobey her husband.

Ginny, on the other hand, had spent a great deal of time with her father and, at eighteen, she possessed a lively wit, an active mind, and a startling tendency to think for herself.

Hermione would think as her husband told her and do what he told her to do, but Ginny would think for herself and very likely do as _she_ thought best.

Hermione was angelic, Dumbledore decided, but Ginny was . . . not.

Squinting through his half-moon spectacles at Ginny, who was resolutely sketching yet another picture of the vine-covered garden wall, he stared at her patrician profile, trying to think of the words to describe her. Brave, he decided, knowing she was sketching because she was trying to stay busy rather than dwell on her grief. And compassionate, the thought, recalling her efforts to console and cheer her father's sick patients.

Dumbledore shook his head in frustration. As an old man, he enjoyed her intelligence and her sense of humor; he admired her courage, spirit, and compassion. But if he emphasized these qualities to her English relatives, they would surely envision her as an independent, bookish, unmarriageable female whom they would have on their hands forever. There was still the possibility that when Harry Potter returned from his mission in killing the Dark Lord in several months, he would formally request Ginny's hand, but Dumbledore wasn't certain. Ginny's father and Harry's aunt had agreed that, before the young couple became betrothed, their feelings for one another should be tested during this period while Harry did his duty for the Order of the Phoenix.

Ginny's affection for Harry had remained strong and constant, Dumbledore knew, but Harry's feelings for her were apparently wavering. According to what Mrs. Dursley (Harry's aunt) had confided to Dumbledore yesterday, Harry seemed to be developing a strong attraction to a female auror who was his partner in the mission.

Dumbledore sighed unhappily as he continued to gaze at the two girls, who were dressed in plain black gowns, one with shining brown hair, the other's gleaming pale copper. Despite the somberness of their attire, they made a very fetching picture, he thought fondly. A picture! Seized by inspiration, Dumbledore decided to solve the whole problem of describing the girls to their English relatives by simply enclosing a moving picture of them in each letter.

That decision made, he finished his first letter by asking the duchess to confer with the Duke of Atherton, who was receiving an identical letter, and to advise what they wished to do in the matter of the girls' care. Dumbledore wrote the same letter to the Duke of Atherton; then attached it to a large owl, and sent it out the window. With a brief prayer to Merlin that either the duke or duchess would reimburse him for his expenditures, Dumbledore stood up and stretched.

Outside in the garden, Hermione nudged the ground with the toe of her slipper, sending the swing twisting listlessly from side to side.

"I still cannot quite believe it," she said, her soft voice filled with a mixture of despair and excitement. "Your mama was the granddaughter of a duchess! What does that make us, Gin? Do we have titles?"

Ginny sent her a wry glance. "Yes," she said. "We are 'Poor Relations.'"

It was the truth, for although Arthur Weasley had been loved and valued by the grateful country folk whose ills he had treated for many years, his patients had rarely been able to pay him with a coin, and he had never pressed them to do so. They repaid him instead with whatever goods and services they were able to provide – with livestock, fish for his table, with repairs for his broomsticks and home, with freshly baked goods and potions. As a result, the Weasley family had never wanted for food, but money was ever in short supply, as evidenced by the often mended, hand-dyed dresses and robes Hermione and Ginny were both wearing. Even the house they lived in had been provided by the villagers.

Hermione ignored Ginny's sensible summation of their status and continued dreamily, "Our cousin is a duke, and our great-grandmother is a duchess! I still cannot quite believe it, can you?"

"I always thought Mama was something of a mystery," Ginny replied, blinking back the tears of loneliness and despair that mister her blue eyes. "Now the mystery is solved."

"What mystery?"

Ginny hesitated, her sketching pencil hovering above her tablet. "I only meant that Mama was different from every other female I've ever known."

"I suppose she was," Hermione agreed, and lapsed into silence.

Ginny stared at the sketch that lay in her lap while the delicate lines and curves of the meandering roses she'd been drawing from her memory of last summer blurred before her moist eyes. The mystery was solved. _Now _she understood a great many things that had puzzled and troubled her. Now she understood why her mother had never mingled comfortably with the other women of the village, why she had always spoken in cultured tones of an English gentlewoman and stubbornly insisted that, at least in her presence, Ginny and Hermione do the same. Her heritage explained her mother's insistence that they learn to read and speak French in addition to English. It explained her fastidiousness. It partially explained the strange, haunted expression that crossed her features on those rare occasions when she mentioned England.

Perhaps it even explained her strange reserve with her own husband, whom she treated with gentle courtesy, but nothing more. Yet she had, on the surface, been an exemplary wife. She had never scolded her husband, never complained about her shabby-genteel existence, and never quarreled with him. Ginny had long ago forgiven her mother for not loving her father. Now that she realized her mother must have been reared in incredible luxury, she was also inclined to admire her uncomplaining fortitude.

Healer Dumbledore walked into the garden and beamed an encouraging smile at both girls. "I've finished my letters and I just sent them with an owl. With luck, we should have your relatives' replies in the next few weeks, perhaps less." He smiled at both girls, pleased at the part he was trying to play in reuniting them with their noble English relatives.

"What do you think they'll do when they receive your letters, Healer Dumbledore?" Hermione asked.

Dumbledore patted her head and squinted into the sunshine, drawing upon his imagination. "They'll be surprised, I supposed, but they won't let it show – the English upper classes don't like to display emotion, I'm told, and they're sticklers for formality. Once they've read the letters. They'll probably send polite notes to each other, and then one of them will call upon the other to discuss your futures. A butler will carry in tea. ."

He smiled as he envisioned the delightful scenario in all its detail. In his mind he pictured two genteel English aristocrats – wealthy, kindly people – who would meet in an elegant drawing room to partake of tea from a silver tray before they discussed the future of their heretofore unknown – but cherished – young relatives. Since the Duke of Atherton and the Duchess of Claremont were distantly related through Molly they would, of course, be friends, allies. . . .


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Again, nothing is mine.

"Her Grace, the dowager Duchess of Claremont," a house elf, Dobson, intoned majestically from the doorway of the drawing room where Charles Malfoy, Duke of Atherton was seated. The house elf stepped aside and an imposing old woman marched in, trailed by her harassed-looking solicitor. Charles Malfoy looked at her, his piercing gray eyes alive with hatred.

"Don't bother to rise, Malfoy," the duchess snapped sarcastically, glaring at him when he remained deliberately and insolently seated.

Perfectly still, he continued to regard her in icy silence. In his mid fifties, Charles Malfoy was still an attractive man, with thick, silver-streaked blonde hair and gray eyes, but his illness had taken its toll on him. He was too thin for his tall frame and his face was deeply etched with lines of strain and fatigue.

Unable to provoke a response from him, the duchess rounded on the head house elf. "This room is too hot!" she snapped, rapping her jeweled-handled cane upon the floor. "Draw the draperies and let in some air."

"Leave them!" Charles barked, his voice seething with the loathing that the mere sight of her evoked in him.

The duchess turned a withering look in his direction. "I have not come here to suffocate," she stated ominously.

"Then get out."

Her thin body stiffened into a rigid line of furious resentment. "I have not come here to suffocate," she repeated through tightly clenched teeth. "I have come here to inform you of mi decision regarding Molly's girls."

"Do it," Charles snapped, "and _then_ get out!"

Her eyes narrowed to furious slits and the air seemed to crackle with her hostility, but instead of leaving, she slowly lowered herself into a chair. Despite her advanced years, the duchess sat as regally erect as a queen, a purple turban perched upon her white head in place of a crown, a cane in her hand instead of a scepter.

Charles watched her with wary surprise, for he had been certain she'd insisted upon this meeting only so she could have the satisfaction of telling him to his face that the disposition of Molly's children was none of his business. He had not expected her to sit down as if she had something more to say.

"You have seen the girls' picture," she stated.

His gaze dropped to the picture in his hand and his long fingers tightened convulsively, protectively around it. Naked pain darkened his eyes as he stared at Ginevra. She was the image of her mother – the image of his beautiful, beloved Molly.

"Ginevra is the image of her mother," her grace snapped suddenly.

Charles lifted his gaze to hers and his face instantly hardened. "I am aware of that."

"Good. Then you will understand why I will not have that girl in my house. I'll take the other one." Standing up as if her business had been concluded, she glanced at her house elf. "See that Healer Dumbledore receives a bank draft to cover his expenses, and another draft to cover ship passage for the younger girl."

"Yes, your grace," her house elf said, bowing. "Will there be anything more?"

"There will be a great deal _more_," she snapped, her voice strained and tight. "I shall have to launch the girl into society, I shall have to provide a dowry for her. I shall have to find her a husband, I . . ."

"What about Ginevra?" Charles interrupted fiercely. "What do you plan to do about the older girl?"

The duchess glowered at him. "I've already told you – that one reminds me of her mother, and I won't have her in my house. If you want her, you can take her. You wanted her mother rather badly, as I recall. And Molly obviously wanted you – even when she was dying, she still spoke your name. You can shelter Molly's image instead. It will serve you right to have to look at the chit."

Charles's mind was still reeling with joyous disbelief when the old duchess added arrogantly, "Marry her off to anyone you please – anyone except that nephew of yours. Twenty-two years ago, I wouldn't tolerate an alliance between your family and mine, and I still forbid it. I. . ." As if something had just occurred to her, she broke off abruptly, her eyes beginning to gleam with malignant triumph.

"I shall marry Hermione to Winston's son!" she announced gleefully. "I wanted Molly to marry the father, and she refused because of you. I'll marry Hermione to the son – I'll have that alliance with the Winstons after all!" A slow, spiteful smile spread across her wrinkled face, and she laughed at Charles's pinched expression. "After all these years, I'm still going to pull off the most splendid match in a decade!"

With that, she swept out of the room, followed by her house elf.

Charles stared after her, his emotions veering between bitterness, hatred, and joy. That vicious old bitch had just inadvertently given him the one thing he wanted more than life itself – she had given him Ginevra, Molly's child. Molly's image. A happiness that was almost past bearing surged through Charles, followed almost immediately by boiling wrath. That devious, heartless, conniving old woman was going to have an alliance with the Winstons – exactly as she had always wanted. She had been willing to sacrifice Molly's happiness to have that meaningless alliance, and now she was going to succeed.

That rage Charles felt because she, too, was gaining what she had always wanted nearly eclipsed his own joy at getting Ginevra. And then suddenly, a thought occurred to him. With narrowed eyes, he contemplated it, mulled it over, studied it. And slowly he began to smile. "Dobson," he said eagerly to his house elf. "Bring me a quill and parchment. I want to write out a betrothal announcement. See that it is delivered to the _Daily Prophet_ at once."

"Yes, your grace."

Charles looked up at the old house elf, his eyes burning with feverish jubilation. "She was wrong, Dobson," he announced. "The old bitch was wrong!"

"Wrong, your grace?"

"Yes, wrong! She's not going to pull off the most splendid match in a decade. _I _am!"

It was a ritual. Each morning at approximately 9 o'clock, Northrup the house elf opened the massive front door of the Marquess of Wakefield's palatial country mansion and was handed a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ by a house elf footman who had brought it from London.

After closing the door, Northrup crossed the marble foyer and handed the newspaper to another house elf stationed at the bottom of the grand staircase.

"His lordship's copy of the _Daily Prophet_," he intoned.

This house elf carried the paper down the hall and into the dining room where Draco Malfoy, Marquess of Wakefield, was customarily finishing his morning meal and reading his mail.

"Your copy of the _Daily Prophet_, my lord," the house elf murmured diffidently as he placed it beside the marquess's coffee cup and then removed his plate. Wordlessly, the marquess picked up the paper and opened it.

All of this was performed with the perfectly orchestrated and faultlessly executed precision of a minuet, for Lord Malfoy was an exacting master who demanded that his estates and townhouses run as smoothly as well-oiled machines.

His servants were in awe of him, regarding him as a cold, frighteningly unapproachable deity whom they strove desperately to please.

The eager London beauties whom Draco took to balls, operas, plays – and bed – felt much the same way about him, for he treated most of them with little more than genuine warmth than he did his servants. Nevertheless, the ladies eyed him with unveiled longing wherever he went, for despite his cynical attitude, there was an unmistakable aura of virility about Draco that made feminine hearts flutter.

His thick hair was golden blonde, his piercing eyes were the shining gray of molten silver, his lips firm and sensually molded. Tough, rugged strength was carved into every feature of his pale face, from his straight blonde brows to the arrogant jut of his chin and jaw. Even his physical build was overpoweringly masculine. For he was six feet two inches tall, with wide shoulders, narrow hips, and firmly muscled legs and thighs. Whether he was riding a broomstick or dancing at a ball, Draco Malfoy stood out among his fellow men like a magnificent jungle cat surrounded by harmless, domesticated kittens.

As Lady Wilson-Smyth once laughingly remarked, Draco Malfoy was as dangerously attractive as sin – and undoubtedly just as wicked.

That opinion was shared by many, for anyone who looked into those cynical silver eyes of his could tell there wasn't an innocent or naïve fiber left in his lithe, muscular body. Despite that – or more accurately, _because_ of it – the ladies were drawn to him like pretty moths to a scorching flame, eager to experience the heat of his ardor or bask in the dazzling warmth of one of his rare, lazy smiles. Sophisticated, married flirts schemed to occupy his bed; younger ladies of marriageable age dreamed of being the one to thaw his icy heart and bring him to his knees.

Some of the more sensible members of the London high class remarked that Lord Malfoy had good reason to be cynical where women were concerned. Everyone knew that his wife's behavior when she first came to London four years ago had been scandalous. From the moment she arrived in town, the beautiful Marchioness of Wakefield had indulged in one widely publicized affair after another. She had repeatedly cuckolded her husband; everyone knew it – including Draco Malfoy, who apparently didn't care. . . .

The house elf paused beside Lord Malfoy's chair, an ornate sterling coffeepot in his hand. "Would you care for more coffee my lord?"

His lordship shook his head and turned to the next page of the _Daily Prophet_. The house elf bowed and retreated. He had not expected Lord Malfoy to answer him aloud. For the master rarely deigned to speak to any of his servants. He did not know most of their names, or anything about them, nor did he care. But at least he was not given to ranting and raving, as many of the nobility were. When displeased, the Marquess merely turned the chilling blast of his silver gaze on the offender and froze him. Never, not even under the most extreme provocation, did Lord Malfoy raise his voice.

Which was why the amazed house elf nearly dropped his silver coffeepot when Draco Malfoy slammed his hand down on the table with a crash that made the dishes dance and thundered, "_That son of a bitch!"_

Leaping to his feet, he stared at the open newspaper, his face a mask of fury and disbelief. "That conniving, scheming – he's the only one who would dare!" With a murderous glance at the thunderstruck house elf, he stalked out of the room, grabbed his cloak from the head house elf, stormed out of the house, and headed straight for the stables.

Northrup closed the front door behind him and rushed down the hall, his black dishtowel flapping. "What happened to his lordship?" he demanded, bursting into the dining room.

The house elf was standing beside Lord Malfoy's recently vacated chair, staring raptly at the open newspaper, the forgotten coffeepot still suspended in one hand. "I think it was somethin' he read in the _Daily Prophet_," he breathed, pointing to the announcement of the engagement of Draco Malfoy, Marquess of Wakefield, to Miss Ginevra Weasley.

"I didn't know his lordship was plannin' to wed," the house elf added.

"One wonders if his lordship knew it either," Northrup mused, gaping in astonishment at the newspaper. Suddenly realizing that he had so forgotten himself as to gossip with a lower servant, Northrup swept the paper from the table and closed it smartly. "Lord Malfoy's affairs are no concern of yours, O'Malley. Remember that if you wish to carry on working here without being given clothes."

Two hours later, Draco's carriage landed in front of the Duke of Atherton's London residence. A groom ran forward and Jason tossed the rains to him, bounded out of the carriage, and strode purposefully up the front steps to the house.

"Good day, my lord," Dobson intoned as he opened the front door and stepped aside. "His grace is expecting you."

"I'll bet he damned well is!" Draco bit out scathingly. "Where is he?"

"In the drawing room my lord."

Draco stalked past him and down the hall, his long, quick strides eloquent of his turbulent wrath as he flung open the drawing room door and headed straight toward the dignified, gray-haired man seated before the fire. Without preamble, he snapped, "You, I presume, are responsible for that outrageous announcement in the _Daily Prophet?"_

Charles boldly returned his stare. "I am."

"Then you will have to issue another one to rescind it."

"No," Charles stated implacably. "The young woman is coming to England and you are going to marry her. Among other things, I want a grandson from you, and I want to hold him in my arms before I depart this world."

"If you want a grandson," Draco snarled, "all you have to do is locate some of your other by-blows. I'm sure you'll discover they've sired you _dozens_ of grandsons by now."

Charles flinched at that, but his voice merely lowered ominously. "I want a _legitimate_ grandson to present to the world as my heir."

"A legitimate grandson," Draco repeated with freezing sarcasm. "You want me, your illegitimate son, to sire you a_ legitimate_ grandson. Tell me something: with everyone else believing I'm your nephew, how do you intend to claim my son as your grandchild?"

"I would claim him as my great-nephew, but _I _would know he's my grandson, and that's all that matters." Undaunted by his son's soaring fury, Charles finished implacably, "I want an heir from you, Draco."

A pulse drummed in Draco's temple as he fought to control his wrath. Bending low, he braced his hands on the arms of Charles's chair, his face only inches away from the older man's. Very slowly and very distinctly, he enunciated, "I have told you before, and I'm telling you for the last time, that I will never remarry. Do you understand me? I _will never remarry_!"

"Why?" Charles snapped. "You aren't entirely a woman-hater. It's common knowledge that you've had mistresses and that you treat them well. In fact, they all seem to tumble into love with you. The ladies obviously like being in your bed, and you obviously like having them there. . ."

"Shup up!" Draco exploded.

A spasm of pain contorted Charles's face and he raised his hand to his chest, his long fingers clutching his shirt. Then he carefully returned his hand to his lap.

Draco's eyes narrowed, but despite his suspicion that Charles was merely faking the pain, he forced himself to remain silent as his father continued.

"The young lady I've chosen to be your wife should arrive here in about three months. I will have a carriage waiting at the dock so that she may proceed directly to Wakefield Park. For the sake of propriety, I will join the two of you there and remain with you until all the nuptials have been performed. I knew her mother long ago, and I've seen a likeness of Ginevra – you won't be disappointed." He held out the picture. "Come now, Draco," he said, his voice turning soft, persuasive, "aren't you the slightest bit curious about her?"

Charles's attempt at cajolery hardened Draco's features into a mask of granite. "You're wasting your time. I won't do it."

"You'll do it," Charles promised, resorting to threats in his desperation. "Because if you don't, I'll disinherit you. You've already spent half a million galleons of your money restoring my estates, estates that will never belong to you unless you marry Ginevra Weasley."

Draco reacted to the threat with withering contempt.

"Your precious estates can burn to the ground for all I care. My son is dead – I no longer have any use for legacies."

Charles saw the pain that flashed across Draco's eyes at the mention of his little boy, and his tone softened with shared sorrow. "I'll admit that I acted precipitously in announcing your betrothal, Draco, but I had my reasons. Perhaps I can't force you to marry Ginevra, but at least don't set your mind against her. I promise you that you'll find no fault with her. Here, I have a picture of her and you can see for yourself how beautiful. . ." Charles's voice trailed off as Draco turned on his heel and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him with a deafening crash.

Charles glowered at the closed door. "You'll marry her, Draco," he warned his absent son. "You'll do it if I have to hold a gun to your head."

He glanced up a few minutes later as Dobson came in carrying a silver tray laden with a bottle of champagne and two goblets. "I took the liberty of selecting something appropriate for the occasion," the old house elf confided happily, putting the tray on the table near Charles.

"Draco has already left," Charles said wryly.

The house elf's face fell. "Already left? But I didn't have an opportunity to congratulate his forthcoming nuptials."

"Which is fortunate indeed," Charles said with a grim chuckle, "I fear he'd have loosened your teeth."

When the house elf left, Charles picked up the bottle of champagne, opened it, and poured some into the goblet. With a determined smile, he lifted his glass in a solitary toast: "To your forthcoming marriage, Draco."

"I'll just be a few minutes, Mr. Borowski," Victoria said, jumping down from the farmer's wagon that was loaded with Hermione's and her belongings.

"Take yer time," he said, puffing on his pipe and smiling. "Me an' yer cousin won't leave without you."

"Do hurry, Gin," Hermione pleaded. "The ship won't wait for us."

"We got plenty o' time," Mr. Borowski told her. "I'll get you to the city and yer ship afore nightfall, and that's a promise."

Ginny hurried up the steps of Harry's imposing house, which overlooked the village from a hilltop, and knocked on the heavy oaken door. "Good morning, Mrs. Tilden," she said to the plump housekeeper. "May I see Mrs. Dursely for a moment? I want to tell her good-bye and give her a letter to send on to Harry, so he'll know where to write to me in England."

"I'll tell her you're here, Ginevra," The kindly housekeeper replied with an unencouraging expression, "but I'll doubt she'll see you. You know how she is when she's having one of her sick spells."

Ginny nodded sagely. She knew all about Mrs. Dursley's "sick spell." According to Ginny's father, Harry's aunt was a chronic complainer who invented ailments to avoid doing anything she didn't wish to do, and to manipulate and control Harry. Arthur Weasley had told Mrs. Dursley that to her face several years ago, in front of Ginny, and the woman had never forgiven either of them for it.

Ginny knew that Mrs. Dursley was a fraud, and so did Harry. For that reason, her palpitations, dizzy spells, and tingling limbs had little effect on either of them – a fact that, Ginny knew, further antagonized her against her nephew's choice of a wife.

The housekeeper returned with a grim look on her face. "I'm sorry Ginevra, Mrs. Dursley says she isn't well enough to see you. I'll take your letter to Mr. Harry and give to her to send on to him. She wants me to summon Healer Dumbledore," she added in disgust. "Shy says she has a ringing in her ears."

Healer Dumbledore sympathizes with her ailments, instead of telling her to get out of bed and do something useful with her life," Ginny summarized with a resigned smile, handing over the letter. She wished it wasn't so costly to send mail to Europe, so she could post her letters herself, instead of having Mrs. Dursley include them in her own letters to Harry. "I think Mrs. Dursley likes Healer Dumbledore's attitude better than she liked my father's."

"If you ask me," Mrs. Tilden said huffily, "she liked your papa a sight too much. It was almost more than a body could stand, watchin' her dress herself up before she sent for him in the middle of the night and – not," she broke off and corrected her self quickly, "that your papa, dear man that he was, ever played along with her scheme."

When Ginevra left, Mrs. Tilden brought the letter upstairs. "Mrs. Dursley," she said, approaching the widow's bed, "here is Ginevra's letter for Mr. Harry."

"Give it to me," Mrs. Dursley snapped in a surprisingly strong voice for an invalid, "and then send for Healer Dumbledore at once. I feel quite dizzy. When is the new doctor supposed to arrive?"

"Within a week," Mrs. Tilden relied, handing the letter to her.

When she left, Mrs. Dursley patted her gray hair into place beneath her lace cap and glance with a grimace of distaste at the letter lying beside her satin coverlet. "Harry won't marry that country mouse," she said contemptuously to her maid. "She's nothing! He's written that his partner is a lovely girl. I've told Ginevra that, but the foolish baggage won't listen!"

"Do you think he'll bring his partner home as his wife then?" her maid asked, helping to plump the pillows behind Mrs. Dursley's back.

Mrs. Dursley's thin, horsey face pinched with anger, "Don't be a fool! Harry has no time for a wife. I've told him that. This place is more than enough to keep him busy, and his duty is to it, and to me." She picked up Ginny's letter with two fingers as if it were contaminated and passed it to her maid. "You know what to do with this," she said coldly.

"I didn't know there were this many people, or this much noise, in the entire world," Hermione burst out as she stood on a dock in New York's bustling harbor.

Stevedores with trunks slung on their shoulders swarmed up and down the gangplanks of dozens of ships; winches creaked overhead as heavily loaded cargo nets were lifted off the wooden pier and carried over the sides of the vessels.

"It's exciting," Ginny said, watching the two trunks that held all their worldly possessions being carried on board the _Thestral_ by a pair of burly stevedores.

Hermione nodded in agreement, but her face clouded. "It is, but I keep remembering that at the end of our voyage, we'll be separated, and it is all our great-grandmother's fault. What can she be thinking of to refuse you her home?"

"I don't know, but you mustn't dwell on it," Ginny said with an encouraging smile. "Think only of nice things. Look at the East River. Close your eyes and smell the salty air."

Hermione closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, but she wrinkled her nose. "All I smell is dead fish. Gin, if our great-grandmother knew more about you, I _know_ she would want you to come to her. She can't be so cruel and unfeeling as to keep us apart. I shall tell her all about you and make her change her mind."

"You mustn't say or do anything to alienate her," Ginny warned gently. "For the time being, you and I are entirely dependent upon our relatives."

"I won't alienate her if I can help it," Hermione promised, "but I shall make it ever so clear, in tiny ways, that she ought to send for you at once." Ginny smiled but remained silent.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Miss Hermione Weasley?" the gentleman inquired politely, stepping aside as three burly English seamen with heavy sacks slung over their shoulders elbowed past him and strode off down the dock.

"I am she," Hermione said, her voice trembling with fright and excitement as she gazed at the impeccably dressed, white-haired man.

"I have been instructed by her grace, the Duchess of Claremont, to escort you to her home. Where are your trunks?"

"Right there," Hermione said, "There's only one."

He glanced over his shoulder and two house elves climbed off the back of a shiny black coach with a gold crest on the door and hurried forward. "In that case, we can be on our way," the man said as her trunk was lifted up and loaded atop the coach.

"But what about my cousin?" Hermione said, her hand clasping Ginny's in a stranglehold of eager terror.

"I'm certain that the party meeting your sister will be here directly. Your ship arrived four days ahead of schedule."

"Don't worry about me," Ginny said with a bright confidence she didn't quite feel. "I'm certain the duke's carriage will be here any minute. In the meantime, Captain Gardiner will let me stay on board. Run along now."

Hermione enfolded her cousin in a tight hug. "Gin, I'll contrive some way to persuade our grandmother to invite you to stay with us, you'll see. I'm scared. Don't forget to write. Write every day!"

Ginny stayed where she was, watching Hermione climb daintily into the luxurious vehicle with the gold crest on the door. The stairs were put up, the coachman snapped his whip, and the four thestrals flew off as Hermione waved goodbye from the window.

Jostled by sailors leaving the ship in eager search of "foine ale and tarts," Ginny stood on the dock, her gaze clinging to the departing coach. She had never felt so utterly alone in her life.

She spent the next two days in bored solitude in her cabin, the tedium interrupted only by her short walks on deck and her meals with Captain Gardiner, a charming, fatherly man who seemed to greatly enjoy her company. Ginny had spent a considerable amount of time with him over the past weeks, and they had shared dozens of meals during the long voyage. He knew her reasons for coming to England, and she regarded him as a newly made friend.

When by the morning of the third day no coach had arrived to convey Ginny to Wakefield Park, Captain Gardiner took matters into his own hands and hired one. "We were early getting into port, which is a rare occurrence," he explained. "Your cousin may not think to send someone for you for days yet. I have business to conduct in London and I cannot leave you on board unprotected. In the time it would take to notify Lord Malfoy of your arrival, you can be there yourself."

For long hours, Ginny studied the English countryside decked out in all its magical spring splendor. Pink and yellow flowers bloomed in profusion across hedgerows that marched up and down the hills and valleys. Despite the jostling and jarring of the not-so-smooth flight of her carriage, her spirits rose with every passing mile they flew. The coachman rapped on the door above her and his ruddy face appeared. "We're about two miles away, ma'am, so if you'd like to. . ."

Everything seemed to happen at once. Something broke from the harness of the thestrals and they were heading towards the ground. The coach jerked crazily to the side, the coachman's head disappeared, and Ginny was flung to the floor in a sprawling heap. A moment later, the door was jerked open and the coachman helped her out. "You hurt?" he demanded.

Ginny shook her head, but before she could utter a word, he rounded on two men dressed in farmers work robes who were sheepishly clutching their caps in their hands. "Ye bloody fools! What d'ye mean pullin' outta nowhere like that! Look what ye've done, me axle's broken. . ."

The rest of what he said was laced with curses.

Delicately turning her back on the loud conversation, Ginny shook her skirts, trying unsuccessfully to rid them of the dust and grime they'd acquired from the floor of the coach. The coachman crawled under his coach to inspect his broken axle and thestral harnesses, and one of the farmer wizards shuffled over to Ginny, twisting his battered cap in his hands. "Jack 'n' me, we're awful sorry, ma'am," he said. "We'll take you on to Malfoy Manor – that is, if you don't mind us puttin' yer trunk in back with them piglets?"

Grateful not to have to walk the two miles, Ginny readily agreed. She paid the coachman with the traveling money Charles Malfoy had sent her and climbed onto the bench between the two burly farm wizards. Riding in a farm cart, although less prestigious than a coach, was scarcely and bumpier and far more comfortable. Fresh breezes cooled her face and her view of the lavish countryside was unrestricted.

With her usual unaffected friendliness, Ginny soon succeeded in engaging both men in a conversation about farming, a topic about which she knew a little and was perfectly happy to know more. Evidently, English farmers were violently imposed to the implementation of magic for use in farming. "Put us all out of work, they will," one of the farmers told her at the end of his impassioned condemnation of people using magic instead of people.

Ginny scarcely heard that, because their wagon turned onto a paved drive and passed between two imposing iron gates that opened into a broad, seemingly endless stretch of gently rolling, manicured parkland punctuated with towering trees. The park stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see, bisected here and there by a stream that meandered about, its banks covered with flowers of pink and blue and white. "It's a fairyland," Ginny breathed aloud, her sunned, admiring gaze roving across the carefully tended banks of the picturesque stream and the sweeping landscape. "It must take dozens of garden wizards to care for a place this size."

"That it do," Jack said. "His lordship's got forty of 'em, countin' the ones that takes care of the _real_ gardens at the house, I mean." They had been plodding along the paved drive for fifteen minutes when the cart rounded a bend and Jack pointed out proudly. "There it is – Malfoy Manor. I heert it has hunnert and sixty rooms."

Ginny gasped, her mind reeling, her empty stomach clenching into a tense knot. Stretched out before her in all its magnificent splendor was a three-story house that altogether surpassed her wildest imaginings. Built of mellow brick with huge forward wings and steep rooftops dotted with chimneys, it loomed before her – a palace with graceful terraced steps leading up to the front door and sunlight glistening against hundreds of panes of mullioned glass.

They drew to a stop before the house and Ginny tore her gaze away long enough for one of the farm wizards to help her down from the wagon seat. "Thank you, you've been very kind." She said, and started slowly up the steps. Apprehension turned her feet to lead and her knees to water. Behind her, the farmers went to the back of the wagon to remove her bulky trunk, but as they let down the back gate, two squealing piglets hurtled out of the wagon into empty air, hit the ground with a thud, and streaked off across the lawns.

Ginny nervously turned at the sound of the farm wizards' shouts and giggled nervously as the red-faced men ran after the speedy little porkers.

Ahead of her, the door of the mansion was flung open and a stiff-faced house elf dressed in a green and gold dish towel cast an outraged glance over the farmers, the piglets, and the dusty, disheveled female approaching him. "Deliveries," he told Ginny in a loud, ominous voice, "are made in the _rear_."

Raising his arm, he pointed imperiously toward the drive that ran alongside the house.

Ginny opened her mouth to explain she wasn't making a delivery, but her attention was diverted by a little piglet, which had changed direction and was headed straight toward her, pursued by a panting farm wizard.

"Get that cart, those swine, and your person out of here!" the man in the livery boomed.

Tears of helpless mirth sprang to Ginny's eyes as she bent down and scooped the escaped piglet into her arms. Laughing, she tried to explain. "Sir, you don't under. . ."

Northrup ignored her and glanced over his shoulder at the house elf behind him. "Get rid of the lot of them! Throw them off. . ."

"What the hell is going on here?" demanded a man of about twenty four with light blonde hair, stalking onto the front steps.

The house elf pointed a finger at Ginny's face, his eyebrows levitating with anger. "That woman is. . ."

"Ginevra Weasley," Ginny put in hastily, trying to stifle her mirth as tension, exhaustion, and hunger began pushing her perilously close to nervous hysteria. She saw the look of unconcealed shock on the blonde-haired man's face when he heard her name, and her alarm erupted into hilarity.

With uncontrollable laughter bubbling up inside her, she turned and dumped the squirming piglet into the flushed farmer's arms, then lifted her dusty skirts and tried to curtsy. "I fear there's been a mistake," she said on a suffocated giggle. "I've come to. ."

The tall man's icy voice checked her in mid-curtsy. "Your mistake was in coming here in the first place, Miss Weasley. However, it's too close to dark to send you back to wherever you came from." He caught her by the arm and pulled her rudely forward.

Ginny sobered instantly; the situation no longer seemed riotously funny, but terrifyingly horrid. Timidly, she stepped through the doorway into a three-story marble entrance hall that was larger than her entire home in New York. On either side of the foyer, twin branches of a great, curving staircase swept upward to the next two floors, and a great domed skylight bathed the area in mellow sunlight from high above. She tipped her head back, gazing at the domed glass ceiling three stories above. Tears filled her eyes and the skylight revolved in a dizzy whirl as exhausted anguish overcame her. She had traveled thousands of miles across a stormy sea and rutted roads, expecting to be greeted by a kindly gentleman. Instead she was going to be sent back, away from Hermione – They skylight whirled before her eyes in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors.

"She's going to faint," the house elf predicted.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" the blonde-haired man exploded, and swept her into his arms. The world was already coming back into focus for Ginny as he started up the right-hand branch of the broad marble staircase.

"Put me down," she demanded hoarsely, wriggling in embarrassment. "I'm perfectly. . ."

"Hold still!" he commanded. On the landing, he turned right, and stalked into a room, and headed straight for a huge bed surrounded by blue and silver silk draperies suspended from a high, carved wood frame and gathered back at the corners with silver velvet ropes. Without a work, he dumped her unceremoniously onto the blue silk coverlet and shoved her shoulders back down when she tried to sit up.

The house elf rushed into the room, his dish towel flapping behind him. "Here, my lord – hartshorn," he panted.

My lord snatched the bottle from his hand and rammed it toward Ginny's nostrils.

"Don't!" Ginny cried, trying to twist her head away from the terrible ammoniac odor, but his hand persistently followed her face. In sheer desperation, she grasped his wrist, trying to hold it away while he continued to force it toward her. "What are you trying to do," she burst out, "feed it to me?"

"What a delightful idea," he replied grimly, but the pressure on her restraining hand relaxed and he moved the bottle a few inches away from her nose. Exhausted and humiliated, Ginny turned her head aside, closed her eyes, and swallowed audibly as she fought back the tears congealing in her throat. She swallowed again.

"I sincerely hope," he drawled nastily, "that you are not considering getting sick on this bed, because I'm warning you that _you_ will be the one to clean it up."

Ginevra Victoria Weasly – the product of eighteen years of careful upbringing that had, until now, produced a sweet-tempered, charming young lady – turned her head on the pillow and regarded him with scathing animosity.

"Are you Charles Malfoy?"

"No."

"In that case, kindly get off this bed or allow me to do so!"

His brows snapped together as he stared down at the rebellious waif who was glaring at him with murder in her brilliant blue eyes. Her hair spilled over the pillows like liquid golden flame, curling riotously at her temples and framing a face that looked as if it had been sculpted in porcelain by a master. Her eyelashes were incredibly long, her lips as pink and soft as –

Abruptly, the man lunged to his feet and stalked out of the room, followed by the house elf. The door closed behind them, leaving Ginny in deafening silence.

Slowly she sat up and put her legs over the side of the bed, then eased herself to her feet, afraid the dizziness would return. Numb despair made her feel cold all over, but her legs were steady as she gazed about her. On her left, light blue draperies heavily embellished with silver threads were pulled back, framing an entire wall of mullioned windowsl at the far end of the room, a pair of blue-and-silver-striped settees were placed at right angles to an ornate fireplace. The phrase 'decadent splendor' drifted through her mind as she dusted off her skirts, cast one more look about the room, and then gingerly sat back down on the blue silk coverlet.

An awful lump of desolation swelled in her throat as she folded her hands in her lap and tried to think what to do next. Evidently she was to be sent back to New York like unwanted baggage. Why then had her cousin the duke brought her here in the first place? Where was he?_ Who_ was he?

She couldn't go to Hermione and her great-grandmother, because the duchess had written Healer Dumbledore a note that made it clear that Hermione, and Hermione alone, was welcome in her home. Ginny frowned, her smooth brow furrowing in confusion. Since the blonde-haired man had been the one to carry her upstairs, perhaps _he_ was a servant.

Someone knocked at the door of the room, and Ginny Guiltily jumped off the bed and carefully smoothed the coverlet before calling, "Come in."

A maid in a starched black dress, white apron, and white cap entered, a silver tray in her hands. Six more maids in identical black uniforms marched in like marionettes, carrying buckets of steaming water. Behind them came two house elves in silver-braid-trimmed green pillowcases, carrying her trunk.

The first maid put the tray on the table between the settees, while the other maids disappeared into an adjoining room and the house elves deposited the trunk at the end of the bed. A minute later, they all apparated out of the room. The remaining maid turned to Ginny, who was standing self-consciously beside the bed. "Here's a bit for you to eat, miss," she said; her plain face was carefully expressionless, but her voice was shyly pleasant.

Ginny went over to the settee and sat down, the sight of the buttered toast and hot chocolate making her mouth water.

"His lordship said you were to have a bath," the maid said, and started toward the adjoining room. Ginny paused, the cup of chocolate partway to her lips. "His lordship?" she repeated. "Would that be . . . the short elf who answered the door?"

"Good heavens, no!" the maid replied, regarding Ginny with a strange look. "That would be Northrup, the head house elf, miss."

Ginny's relief was short-lived as the maid hesitantly added, "His lordship is a tall man, with straight blonde hair."

"And _he_ said I should have a bath?" Ginny asked, bristling.

The maid nodded, coloring.

"Well, I do need one," Ginny conceded reluctantly. She ate the toast and finished the chocolate, then wandered into the adjoining room where the maid was pouring perfumed bath salts into the steaming water. Slowly removing her travel-stained gown,  
Ginny thought of the short note Charles Malfoy had sent her, inviting her to come to England. He seemed so anxious to have her here.

"_Come at one, my dear,"_ he had written. _"You are more than welcome here – you are eagerly awaited." _Perhaps she wasn't to be sent away after all. Perhaps "his lordship" had mistaken the matter.

The maid helped her wash her hair, then held up a fluffy cloth for Ginny and helped her out of the tub. "I've put away your clothes, miss, and turned down the bed, in case you'd like a nap."

Ginny smiled at her and asked her name.

"My name?" the maid repeated, as if stunned that Ginny should care to ask. "Why, it's – it's Eloise."

Thank you very much, Eloise," Ginny said, "for putting away my clothes, I mean."

A deep flush of pleasure colored the maid's freckled face as she bobbed a wuick curtsy and started for the door.

"Supper is at eight," Eloise informed her. "His lordship rarely keeps country hours at Malfoy Manor."

"Eloise," Ginny said awkwardly as the maid started to leave, "are there two . . . ah . . . 'lordships' here? That is, I was wondering about Charles Malfoy. . ."

"Oh, you're referrin' to his grace!" Eloise glanced over her shoulder as if she was fearful of being overheard before she confided, "He hasn't arrived yet, but we're expectin' him sometime tonight. I heard his lordship tell Northrup to send word to his grace that you've arrived."

"What is his – ah – grace like?" Ginny asked, feeling foolish using these odd titles.

Eloise looked as if she was about to describe him; then she changed her mind. "I'm sorry miss, but his lordship doesn't permit his servants to gossip. Nor are we allowed to be familiar-like with guests." She curtsied and scurried out in a rustle of starched black skirts.

Ginny was startled by the knowledge that two human beings were not permitted to converse together in this house, simply because one was a servant and the other a guest, but considering her brief acquaintance with "his lordship" she could fully imagine him issuing such an inhuman edict.

Ginny took her nightdress from the wardrobe, pulled it over her head, and climbed into bed, sliding between the sheets. Luxurious silk caressed the bare skin of her arms and face as she uttered a weary prayer that Charles Malfoy would prove to be a warmer, kindlier man than his other lordship. Her long dark lashes fluttered down, lying like curly fans against her cheeks, and she fell asleep.


End file.
